A world being abandoned so fast the Lab can't keep up with the foreclosures

by Debbie

two sisters live free in Second Life

On April 13, 2010 the Alphaville Herald posted a story about how to squat on virtualland, written by my genius hero, Pappy Enoch. The next day I went soaring over the mainland looking for abandoned land, and found two huge parcels adjoining a small piece of land that allows me to rez items. It is heaven. I have been squatting on these parcels for well over a year now, and I wanted to thank the Herald by sharing some pictures of my sister and I on our (borrowed) land.

living the good life on borrowed virtual land

The abandoned land, besides the small parcel with full permissions, is also surrounded by regular folks who have built businesses and such at ground level. One of them contacted me several months after I started squatting to ask about all my junk in the sky, but I played dumb and haven't heard from him since.

questions about junk in the sky? just play dumb

Because we have two abandoned parcels, we have lots of prims to play with. I have used the smaller of the parcels for a house, complete with stripper poles on the front deck, where my friends and I like to party.

stripper poles are a cherished amenity in many upscale SL homes

On the other parcel I've built a giant platform, complete with another house, and I use this for examining some of the larger freebies I find on the grid, such as the awesome sewer system by Arcadia Asylum, which I have set up on the parcel as well. (Like I said, it's a big parcel).

Thanks again to the Herald for being so awesome, and to Pappy for giving us the keys to the kingdom. Thanks also to the Lindens for making a world that is being abandoned so fast they can't keep up with the foreclosures.

I know I'll probably take some heat in the comments for this, so I'll just say that if I make it another year without being run-off this land, I'll send topless pictures.

I squatted at the bottom of a volcano about four years ago by covering the top of the opening with “lava” so I could build a home underneath. The owner of the land, who had a house adjacent to the volcano on the same plot, seldom used the land and didn’t realize what I did for about a year or so. When he did, he returned my items but didn’t turn off the ability to rezz on the land. So, I built a skybox at 600 meters above the volcano and lived there for another year.

i suppose there is no truth to the rumour that one of those models is really mark twain white who took two cannonballs up the arse recently at one of his Contested Waters skirmishes and they finally settled into his chest area much to the chagrin of Nibbler who was eating Green Giant nibletts at the time, which isn’t as funny as watching someone in a burka eat spaghetti, or a film of said same run in reverse, but almost…

Nice post, but I do not think Second Life is “A world being abandoned so fast the Lab can’t keep up with the foreclosures”. At worst, it is flat right now, although numbers point to some very slow growth. And this is in the face of a terrible international recession that has dried discretionary income down.

The private estates and Linden are experiencing the same phenomenon. It is easier in many cases just to roll out a new Sim and sell it as it is to “refurbish” an existing one, especially since Linden risks alienating customers by shutting asking them to move. Ansche Chung had the same phenomenon with Dreamland.

Second Life is not Palm Beach County, Florida – a place where I live and which has seen home values decline 60% in five years. Instead, it is flat — with increasing land prices — in a very turgid economic environment. I think a more realistic assessment of current conditions is to everyone’s advantage now.

Gavlarrrrrrrrr

Jul 12th, 2011

A group I am affliatated with owns huge parcels in multiple sims, and pays no land tier, they did once of course, they simply bought land, sent the groups tier from the original group to a version 2 of the original group, and so on so forth.

The group has owned many half sims for 2 years and hasn’t paid any tier since the month the land was bought.

Does LL not care? or have no way of keeping track?

Yep

Jul 12th, 2011

Go getem Tiger

Yep

Jul 12th, 2011

“Does LL not care? or have no way of keeping track?”

Since LL got gready and laid off most of their staff, more than likely cannot keep up.

Edna

Jul 12th, 2011

The Lab loves squatters. They’re just happt to see anyone log in anymore.

Ya, for the fugly ginormous tits. Nobody cares about the squatting tho, it’s LL’s bizniz to manage their lands.

[i], so I’ll just say that if I make it another year without being run-off this land, I’ll send topless pictures.[/i]

Noooooo! Pleeeeez not!

Noticing Noticer

Jul 12th, 2011

Orca-

that’s two separate comments about her big tits. Either you’ve just learned the word “fugly” and are itching to show it off, or you really like her giant tits. I say it’s a classic case of pulling the pigtails of the girl you like, only these pigtails are much bigger and have nipples.

[i]I do not think Second Life is “A world being abandoned so fast the Lab can’t keep up with the foreclosures”. At worst, it is flat right now,[/i]

Yeah, that’s what worries me since day one, SL world being so fooking flat. And yet they force us to buy the niftiest GPUs and call it a 3D application. LL should take a long hard look at Debbie’s boobs, they are perfect examples for what a decent world should look like … I mean globallly speaking

Bronyville Brony

Jul 12th, 2011

Thats funny, Bronyville is selling land at 8L per square meter and is selling out… perhaps it is because mainland simply sucks ass anyways, people appreciate the high quality community in places like Bronyville?

Dubbleyew

Jul 13th, 2011

Speaking of which, there needs to be an article on the massive amounts of ponies that are slowly taking over SL

Dubbleyew

Jul 13th, 2011

The brony is also correct. The mainland fucking sucks. Why would you even WANT to live on a laggy mainland with ugly shit scattered everywhere due to no EMs regulating the theme or aesthetics of the sim, plus the random unrestricted terraforming making it look even more of a mess, not to mention annoying banlines everywhere that stop you dead in your tracks when you’re exploring.

The reason people are abandoning land on the mainland isn’t all because they’re leaving SL, many of them are probably just moving to private estates. Because they’re better, AND you don’t need a premium account to own land on them.

Eleanor

Jul 13th, 2011

Is LL run by donkeys? If abandoned land is the reality, and we all know it is, then why aren’t LL cataloguing and clearing it for redevelopment? Not such a wild idea, since our RL city and council leaders do this all the time…slum clearance. Then set a bunch of high rise social housing apartments on top, declare new players can live free with a prim limit for either a year, or until they’ve failed to log in for 3 weeks (i.e. you can go on RL holiday without logging in and still have a SL home when you get back). If you fail to log in for over 3 weeks you lose the house and it goes free to another new player.

This way you encourage newbs to have ‘roots’ and to engage in return play, thus making SL a fairly regular habit. They arrive in SL with a (pre-designated) home they can call their own, scour the grid for furniture, be encouraged to buy cheap stuff, harvest from skips/dumpsters, etc etc etc.

I’d also encourage ‘village’ thinking, so that players live in small communities and get to know their neighbours, thus encouraging some sociability between players as opposed to it all becoming a ‘parting with lindens for virtual dresses’, grown up Barbie Doll dressing up experience. And I’d stick 2-3 shops, maximum, into each village for ‘business start ups’, so that those with a penchant for design can actually sell their creations from a low, low rent lock-up (L$10-20 a week). There’s a huge untapped Indian/Chinese player market out there, but we all seem to be trapped in this westernised, American Dream styled economy and with Euro-American aspirations. Let’s just get some cultural diversity…African villages…souk styled Arabic villages,
…Calcutta tenements, etc, etc. It doesn’t ALL have to look like Florida.

I wouldn’t have imagined coding the start up would have been that difficult to do (says someone who knows nothing of coding).

I’m sure you’ll all have fabulous ideas about how this is a terrible idea, but let’s have some debate on an apparently declining SL and how we can reinvigorate and improve the game.

Eleanor

Jul 13th, 2011

‘Since LL got gready and laid off most of their staff, more than likely cannot keep up.’

Again, LL misses a trick. I think some of us would who are hardcore, regular players would probably be prepared to ‘manage’ sims or parcels, clear them, terraform them, theme them (although this needs some overseer from LL to ensure everything doesn’t look like Florida) and then become like little Lord Mayors of specific areas and set the rules (again within some pre-set boundaries). In exchange LL give each Lord Mayor a home or some nominal L$20 a week ‘allowance’. It then costs cents to have regular, inbuilt ‘Lord Mayors’ managing entire areas of SL for next to nothing cost to LL, and encouraging some sort of activity on the grid amongst newbs.

I think this idea is sooooooo great that we should find some abandoned land, call it Alphaville New Town, and use the ‘Herald’ as a town council meeting place in which to discuss how we develop ‘our’ own semi-autonomous canton.

Lots of us are vocal in how LL is useless. It seems here’s a fantastic opportunity to form a group, claim some land, build a new town, and present it to LL as a fait accompli on how things should be properly done.

Paul

Jul 13th, 2011

@Dubbleyew

On the other hand, some prefer the mainland because you don’t have to be under the covenant of some pissant virtual world dictator. Have you actually been to the USS or some of the other private estates? Sim upon sim of bland uniform tike huts and palm trees inhabited by the Stepford Avatars….Levittown truly run amok.

right on about the horses though…. first chickens…now this!

Yep

Jul 13th, 2011

Not to mention having the sim vanish one day when the sim owner sells it or abandons it with all of the tier you had already paid for the month ahead of time.

Debi Dastardly

Jul 13th, 2011

Yep – Not to mention having the sim vanish one day when the sim owner sells it or abandons it with all of the tier you had already paid for the month ahead of time.

I so agree, and about some of the Estate owners being total Tyrants, who needs that. Plenty of Tyrants in my other life I cant get away from.

One more thing let the air out of those stupid looking boobies they look stupid and nothing else!

Dubbleyew

Jul 13th, 2011

I’ve lived on plenty of private estates. I’ve found usually the rules to be fairly reasonable and the reason why the mainland is a cluttery fucktarded mess and why private estate rental sims aren’t, is because the latter has rules. I’d prefer to not see “skyboxes” that hover only 80 meters off the ground, giant pillars created via terraforming, or huge, eye-sore black towers in sims meant to be rural, or about a million of those stupid fucking chickens or rabbits or horses causing immense lag on the sim. If that means I abide by the same rules, then fine, it’s not hard to do.

Some estate owners do make some unreasonable rules, true, but that’s why you simply go and pick somewhere to rent that has reasonable rules. The wonder of private estates is that there’s a lot of them. I pay 780 lindens a week for my parcel, and I don’t spend a single penny of my RL cash since I earn enough lindens every week to support it. And it’s great.

Paul

Jul 13th, 2011

@ Dubbleyew

It sounds like you have found your niche as a productive member of virtual society =]

Estates are for homebodies. If you wanna get around and see stuff and don’t feel like TPing all the time mainland’s the way to go. The only way for true SL. Now if they would just get rid of those banlines it would be a hoot. But as fugly and banlined as mainland is these days, it still fucking rocks!!!

Tattoo

Jul 14th, 2011

I found a few squatters on my land, after laughing my ass off as they tumbled to the ground ( returned their skybox) I enabled damage and shot them a bit before the old boot and ban. I did have to set rez rights to group only and watch my prims to see if anymore sneak on. Oh yeah and to the author of this blog…with all the Lindens you are saving on teir there is NO reason your avi should look like that

Gals, just send me a LM and yo’ “genius hero” am on the way to help out. Them there dancin’ poles needs sum work, I kin tell, so if’n y’all kin dance fo’ me I’ll be sure they am in good workin’ corndition.

@Tattoo, what in the Sam Hill am wrong wif you? Miss Debbie got cha-cha-bingos that holler out “let’s play motorboat” to a po’ lonesum boy like me.

[...] What an idea. Alphaville Herald has a post about squatting on land in SL. See: Squatting Second Life. This is an interesting crack in the system. « #SL Mesh Update Week [...]

Nelson Jenkins

Jul 15th, 2011

@ Orca Flotta

If you wanna get around and see stuff and don’t feel like TPing all the time mainland’s the way to go.

I’ve been helping coordinate a mainland rally race for a couple of months now, and it entails going to most of the mainland continents to chart routes. All I found were abandoned parcels with a bunch of freebie junk on them, big shitty “buildings” (and by “buildings” I mean giant shoeboxes with “CRISSY’S FASHIONS” written in MSPaint over a Google Images picture of some clouds on every side), banlines everywhere (making high-speed driving a real bitch), plywood castles, freebie houses, land for sale at embarrassingly inflated prices (a very, very large parcel across from one of our starting points was put up for sale at around 3L/prim, and it was bought up by a land baron, split into tiny strips, and now sells for 52L/prim – only after said land baron went so far as to AR us for encroachment on a Linden road for our finish line, complaining that it “wasn’t Linden-owned objects so she doesn’t want to see it”), and self-driving cars that hog the road, lag down sims, and look like something from a freeware 3D game from 1995.

In short, if I wanna get around and see stuff, I’ll stick to private estates.

Yep

Jul 15th, 2011

Not to mention that when driving on the linden roads you have to stop or guess where the road is.
The lag is so bad that after one or two sim crossings a person finds themselves driving on bleached sand because the road has not rezzed yet.

Yep

Jul 15th, 2011

ooh!!! Go getem Tiger

Debi Dastardly

Jul 15th, 2011

I live on Zindra so some of this doesn’t apply, still better than making a estate baron rich.

@ GG3
Beautiful

Simply, beautiful.

Stupid, they just look simply stupid !!!

fararden

Jul 15th, 2011

So did no one get the fact that this article is a just joke like barbecuing prim babies?

Those boobs are definetly a joke. Hey, Lady, you are going
to poke you eye out with that thing.

Paul

Jul 15th, 2011

faraden: yes we all got the fact that the boobs are a joke and that the article is satire. Thanks though =]

I once squatted on some of Prokofy’s land, but he b& me and killed my bunnies by returning them to inventory, causing them to vanish on their next rez. I am still crying for them.

Cammy Osden

Jul 28th, 2011

Reset Universe (Y/N) ?

Tor Karlsvalt

Aug 3rd, 2011

Not all estates are the same. One might try living at resident governed sims of Neufreistadt, Colonia Nova, Alpine Meadow, Monastery or Locus Amoenus. Our system is not perfect, but citizens do have a voice in how the sims are run.